Our Football Hating ABC (a must read)

[From the dug out]

I am forwarding on a complaint regarding the attitude of our Public funded broadcaster (The ABC).


ABC program: 7 o'clock News
>
> Date of program: Sun 19/12/07  and many other times
>
> Contact type: Complaint
>
> Location: NSW
>
> No response required: false
>
> Subject: Football (Soccer) haters
>
> Comments: The ABC has demonstrated on many occasions and through many
> different forums that it has a culture of Football (Soccer) hatred. This
> was so aptly demonstrated yet again on Sundays 7 O'clock news, where the
> A League was completely ignored. Not the first time by any stretch of
> the imagination, in my household we have long had the sick joke of "Oh,
> the Football hating Producer's on again.". Yesterday you
> covered many different sports, which only served to highlight this
> deliberate act. Have a look back through your weekend broadcasts and see
> how many times this has happened. Yes, you do have non Football hating
> producer's working at weekends, then the A League gets the correct level
> of coverage that a National code should Everyone is entitled to their
> likes and dislikes, but not to use a tax payer funded Public Broadcaster
> as a vehicle for those opinions. 
> Network - ABC Television
> RecipientName - Audience & Consumer Affairs Referer - ABC TV
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

ABC Corporate_Affairs8 wrote:
> Dear Mr (name withheld)
>
> Thank you for your email.
>
> I am advised that the only game in the A-League on Sunday 19 December
> was Melbourne versus Adelaide which was of little interest to a New
> South Wales audience.  ABC News does cover the New South Wales teams and
> will cover interstate games if there is an extraordinary element that
> has interest across borders. 
>
> Nonetheless, please be assured that your concerns are noted and have
> been brought to the attention of our News Editor.  For your reference,
> the ABC's Code of Practice is available at:
> http://www.abc.net.au/corp/pubs/documents/codeprac07.pdf
>
> Yours sincerely
> (Name withheld)
> Audience & Consumer Affair   
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

>Subject:   Re: Football (Soccer) haters

Date:
Tue, 22 Jan 2008 22:51:35 +1100

To:
ABC Corporate_Affairs8 <Corporate_Affairs8.ABC@abc.net.au>

References:
<200801150300.m0F30Wl8006530@nucfw07.abc.net.au>


Dear (Name withheld),
Thank you for your reply. You do seem to have made my point for me.

Firstly may I refer you to the text of my email, copy below, where I
state that this has been happening ever since the inception of the A
League. In your reply you infer that I was complaining about just one
weekend.

Not the first time by any stretch of
the imagination, in my household we have long had the sick joke of "Oh,
the Football hating Producer's on again this weekend".

Do you base your assertion that the Melbourne v Adelaide game was of
little interest to a NSW audience on market research, viewer polls or
the like ? Or is it based on pure prejudice ? By that measure why do you
give great coverage to the AFL, when the Sydney Swans are the only NSW
team ? Would you ignore a Rugby League game between the Brisbane Broncos
and the Melbourne Storm because "it was of little interest to a NSW
audience" ?
The answers to those questions is obvious. Of course you give them
coverage, because all fans of these types of team sports are interested
to know how 'the opposition' went. Why then do you apply a completely
different set of rules to the A League ? How can you justify such
blatant prejudice ?

You state that you will cover interstate games if there is an
extraordinary element. Is that code for if there is violence between
opposition fans ? That after all is the only reason in years gone by
that Football ever got a mention on the ABC.

The World Game in Australia has made huge strides in recent years, the A
League has removed the 'ethnic element' that kept lovers of the code
like myself away. Football is Australia largest participation 'Football
Code' by a very, very large margin. Crowds at A League fixtures
regularly break records, over 80.000 people turned up just to see David
Beckham recently ! The reported take up of Foxtel by people who want to
watch Football (A League and English Premier League mainly) is
impressive and that comment is based on conversations with people from
Foxtel.

Based on what I witness on my TV and your response to my criticism, it
seems that the 'Sheilas, Wogs and Poofters' culture is alive and
well....for now.

Regards,
Name withheld 

TBC....This is an ongoing discussion, and future comments will be posted here.

 

[Atomic]

I don't know if the ABC hates football, maybe it does... but he makes a good point about NSW viewers getting the results of interstate AFL and NRL matches. It makes the explanation about ignoring the Victory vs United game pretty lame. With only 8 teams in our comp, every game that is played has an effect on all teams, regardless of their standing on the competition ladder.... you can't get a better example than the last two round of the league

 

[From the dug out]

I agree totally

 

[FFC Mariner]

To be fair, ABC News Radio does provide pretty good coverageof both HAL and EPL in their morning sports reports.

Unless of course, David Lord is involved.

 

[dibo]

having a national league doesn't automatically entitle us to news coverage on all stations all the time. coverage is getting better all the time. if every time an opportunity to report on football was spurned we all fire off angry emails about the editor hating football it would be just weeks before we would not have a friend left in any mainstream media outlet.

To be fair, ABC News Radio does provide pretty good coverageof both HAL and EPL in their morning sports reports.

Unless of course, David Lord is involved.

deb spillane was reporting on the farina kossie feud this morning and has been talking about socceroos preparations for weeks.

 

[Bex]

I haven't noticed the ABC's performance 'cos I've got Foxtel. But this thread raises an issue which is a pet hate of mine; AFL coverage.

The rediculously high amount of coverage of AFL on free to air TV in NSW drives me absolutely crazy. On any given weekend during the season there are several games of NRL being played but you've got to have pay TV to see most of them. Switch on the TV on a Saturday night or a Sunday and just see if you can manage to avoid AFL coverage. Sometimes, its on two channels at once. Its bloody crazy! Rugby League is the traditional sport in Sydney and its being owned by pay TV. As you can see above, I've finally succumbed to the evil pay TV machine and I can tell you my hip pocket is now suffering big time.

Just when did the public agree trade away their rights to watch sports on free to air? I remember it being such an issue when pay TV first arrived and the response was something like "free to air will remain you can just watch the game without adds". What a croc.

 

[dibo]

Just when did the public agree trade away their rights to watch sports on free to air?

there's been no such trade-off.

there are two NRL games broadcast on FTA per week - friday and sunday, the same as it's been for probably 15 years or so (even before paytv was a player).

the AFL does a bit better because it's got footholds in all the major capitals so there is more call for FTA coverage. channels 7 and 10 pay for it so they might as well broadcast it - it rates better than dead air or old elvis movies which is pretty much the alternative at 2pm on a sunday.

paytv means that all games are broadcast now when once they weren't, and if people want to watch them all they can pay up or go to the pub. before that they had to go to the game, or listen to the radio and hope that theirs was one of the matches that was on.

 

[midfielder]

Well done and more of us should follow the example set here

 

[dibo]

this morning on newsradio, the first sports story was about the socceroos, the second was with lawrie talking about how the week off won't have harmed the boys' preparations too much.

football hating ABC my arse.

 

[The Dark Side]

If you read the text that started this off, it talks about the ABC ignoring the A league, no mention of the Socceroos.
Yes, the ABC have woken up to the national side, but not the national league

 

[The Dark Side]

Oh, and it is also about the coverage on the ABCs 7 O'Clock news, not news radio.......

 

[dibo]

If you read the text that started this off, it talks about the ABC ignoring the A league, no mention of the Socceroos.
Yes, the ABC have woken up to the national side, but not the national league

this morning on newsradio, the first sports story was about the socceroos, the second was with lawrie talking about how the week off won't have harmed the boys' preparations too much.

football hating ABC my arse.

having a national league doesn't automatically entitle us to news coverage on all stations all the time. coverage is getting better all the time. if every time an opportunity to report on football was spurned we all fire off angry emails about the editor hating football it would be just weeks before we would not have a friend left in any mainstream media outlet.

To be fair, ABC News Radio does provide pretty good coverageof both HAL and EPL in their morning sports reports.

Unless of course, David Lord is involved.

deb spillane was reporting on the farina kossie feud this morning and has been talking about socceroos preparations for weeks.

 

[dibo]

Oh, and it is also about the coverage on the ABCs 7 O'Clock news, not news radio.......

check the thread title: Our Football Hating ABC

reread the original post:

> Comments: The ABC has demonstrated on many occasions and through many
> different forums that it has a culture of Football (Soccer) hatred.

i responded to those things, demonstrating examples of another ABC forum that is anything but a football (a-league or otherwise) free zone.

there's are questions that need to be answered by everyone who wants football to get more coverage on the basis of it 'deserving' more:

how much should it get?
60 seconds for every a-league match?
two training reports a week per team, or three?
what should other sports get and how should that be determined?

i'm not saying be grateful for whatever scraps we get, i'm saying that we shouldn't come across as petulant and self-serving. in order to do that we've got to have some sort of understanding of where football fits in with other sports, and accept that there are people interested in sports other than ours as well, and that the ABC in particular but all other outlets as well have to balance the interests of their viewers, readers and listeners. and all the while be thankful you don't support a sport that really gets hosed like netball...

 

[FFC Mariner]

Had to go up to Taree today and was listening to 1233, ABC Scum on the way up.

Jest,Jest & more Jest and then a giveaway comp for tickets.

 

[cruiser]

ABc TV is Sydney/Central Coast is completely biased towards rugby union and cricket. In winter it gives scant coverage to AFL (the Swans are my winter passion).